


My Boy

by VesperNexus



Category: Dune (2020), Dune - All Media Types, Dune Series - Frank Herbert
Genre: Family, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27585944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperNexus/pseuds/VesperNexus
Summary: Idaho reminisces.Inspired by that one scene in the trailer.
Relationships: Paul Atreides & Duncan Idaho
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	My Boy

**Author's Note:**

> I love Herbert's Dune, and I am so gosh darn excited for the film.

“My boy!”

Idaho presses the boy close to his chest, the jutting bones and trim waist cradled in his strong arms. The force of their embrace is so powerful he lifts Paul off his feet, the boy’s shoes rousing a little storm as they drag through the sand. Soft hair tickles his chin and a heart-rending laugh vibrates against the thick material of his still-suit. Paul doesn’t release him once his feet are firmly back on the ground, and Idaho feels the breath stutter in his lungs and his chest slowly expand with delight.

His hands find the boy’s shoulders, holding him at arm’s length with a sceptical eye. His face seems a little gaunter, the bruises around his eyes a little darker, his skin a little more ashen. It’s enough to strike a spear of worry through the pit of Idaho’s belly. Disapproval slides smoothly onto his face.

“I’m okay,” Paul’s mouth is still stretched in a grin befitting his age. It’s brilliant and welcome and uncomfortably foreign on his face, which is too often twisted in a scowl or grimace. Idaho slips a hand into his hair to ruffle it, and the boy steps away to shake him off with futility and a stammering laugh, and for a moment, everything’s a little okay.

“I almost cut myself on your cheekbones, young Master.”

Paul looks sheepish, eyes scurrying quickly to the orange ground, shoulders rising to his ears in a shrug. And then the moment is muted far too quickly, buried under the Duke’s firm approaching footsteps. Idaho releases the boy slowly. His fingers almost rebel against the action, and he briefly struggles to lift them from the boy, every fibre in his body crying to _stay close_ and _protect_.

Idaho steps back a respectable distance to receive his Duke while Paul finally meets eyes over his father’s shoulder.

*

“So,” Idaho sits down heavily next to Paul on the grey stone steps. The boy’s knees are drawn up and bent, wiry arms slung over them and eyes focused somewhere far over the looming white line of the horizon. Orange waves eat up into the muted blue sky.

Paul smiles absentmindedly, and there’s a terrible exhaustion etched onto his face that Idaho simply detests. “So.”

He does not roll his eyes. “How do you like Arrakis?” He waits a long beat as a hot wind trembles over the stone steps and agitates sand over their shoes. “Your new home?”

The shift is barely perceptible, and to the untrained eye, invisible. But Idaho has known the boy since he was kicking excitedly in his mother’s womb, and so he waits another long beat.

“It’s different here.” Idaho moves his eyes from the boy’s face and tries to pinpoint the little dot in the distance occupying Paul’s attention. “Everything and nothing happens here, doesn’t it?”

The question is uncomfortable. Idaho draws in a deep breath, but the crevices of his lungs remain unsatisfied and his chest constricts. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I..” A stillness slips over them. It plays the role of the unwelcome intruder in a place rife with life and movement, from the slow setting of the sun to the writhing grains of sand and subtle stifling wind. So Idaho resists scuffing his shoes into the ground, resists the flex of his muscles and just listens. “I don’t want to be here.”

The words are quiet and they lack any petulance or childishness. Idaho accepts the brief statement for what it is, and mulls over the terrible fate forced onto the boy’s shoulders. “Have you seen something terrible happen here?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t anymore, Idaho. I see terrible things, but they’re dreams. And then I see terrible things, and they aren’t.” The defeat is so palpable it makes Idaho’s heart stutter weakly in his chest. “Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Hey,” his hand is firm on Paul’s shoulder, curling around the back of his neck, and the boy leans subconsciously into his touch. He holds that deep intelligent gaze. “Everything will come to pass, and you’ll be there, on the other side.” His lips lift in a smile, “I’ll keep you safe.”

Paul looks at him for a long time. His eyes betray his youth, and they glisten with such profound fear Idaho is momentarily breathless, “But who will keep _you_ safe, Idaho?”

*

The same seven words slip into his consciousness as he forces Paul into the room, away from the danger. The unfiltered sorrow drawn across the boy’s face is tremendous and gut-wrenching, an it’s an image Idaho will keep in his memory long into his afterlife.

To know a thing must come to pass, to know the horror of a thing, to know it is inevitable and you are powerless to prevent it, _oh_ Idaho thinks, _what a terrible curse has been bestowed upon you._

He forces the door shut and steadies his feet. Paul and Jessica are safe on the other side, and in that moment, that’s really all that matters.


End file.
